I want to set up a tower/desktop system for both personal use, and too build a photo collection. I will be using Windows. At this point I simply want to become familiar with the DAM process and use of the software associated with photography.

Does it make sense to begin with two internal drives with one for dedicated images? If so, what size drives should I be looking for, and should the drives be the same or a different size? I do not play video games/watch movies on computer: just basic computer needs at this time.

I'm not the best qualified to answer your questions, but in short, the bigger the better, and it sounds like using one of your internal drives is a great way to go. As a running backup, an external drive of similar volume would be handy, or use the other internal drive (partitioned or not, as per your taste), with your archival backup to DVD or similar.

Whether you use the other internal drive or an external as a backup, they don't have to be the same size as the original library drive. It helps, as they fill up at the same rate, etc, but it's not important, unless you're using software which doesn't like synchronising different drives or some such.

If you don't already have it, get Peter's book (either edition really), which will answer a lot of this. Good luck, and do your best to do things right from day one!

One thing I forgot to note, there's definitely a risk in relying on both of those drives in the one machine (theft, lightning strike, virus, etc). That risk is reduced as soon as you have a non-live and remote copy of your library - ie, external drive/Dropbox type account/DVD backup.

Both in the one machine is fine, but do make sure you've got a copy elsewhere too. Then build defense higher from there.Mat